Donald J. Epp

The Effect of Water Quality on Rural Nonfarm Residential Property Values

The past decade has seen a phenomenal increase in public awareness and concern over environmental quality. The desire to consume larger amounts of environmental quality has been difficult to satisfy because many of the natural resources involved do not lend themselves to market allocation. This failure of markets to solve the major environmental quality problems has been well documented (Bator, Mishan, Samuelson, Turvey), and generally can be attributed to externalities imposed by use of the environment and the public goods nature of many natural resources. The failure of markets to perform the allocation function to the satisfaction of most people has caused us to turn to other institutions for solutions.

The Importance of Sample Discrimination in Using the Travel Cost Method to Estimate the Benefits of Improved Water Quality

An application of the travel cost method, with emphasis on surveying current users and former users, was made at St. Albans Bay (Lake Champlain) in Vermont. Over the past 10-15 years phosphorus loading in the bay, causing increased rooted and floating plant growth, resulted in declining recreational use. A survey of 311 respondents, who had former recreational experience with St. Albans Bay, revealed that most would return there if the water were to become clean.

A Comparison of Revealed, Stated, and Actual Behavior in Response to a Change in Fishing Quality

Due to water quality problems at its fish culture stations, Pennsylvania stocked 28% fewer catchable trout in 2002 than it had in prior years. The impact of this stocking decrease on license and trout stamp sales was projected based both on an econometric analysis of historical license sales (revealed behavior) and on a telephone survey of trout anglers (stated behavior). The econometric analysis showed no relationship between stocking levels and angler participation. However, in the telephone survey, 11.5% of current trout anglers stated that the cut in stocking would lead them to stop fishing for trout, including 3.2% who would stop fishing altogether. The projections based on stated behavior did a better job predicting resident license sales than did the projection based on revealed behavior, but anglers overstated their tendency to stop buying trout stamps. This research was financially supported by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. The authors are grateful to Yanguo Wang for econometric assistance. The authors alone are responsible for all statements and errors.

Perceptions and Values for Preventing Ecosystem Change: Pennsylvania Duck Hunters and the Prairie Pothole Region

Diverse actions and events, ranging from agricultural development to global climate change, have the potential to affect the dynamics within distinct ecosystems. Resource management decisions require information about how people perceive ecosystem impacts and their willingness to pay to prevent or mitigate ecosystem impacts. This study explores the usefulness of a survey approach for gathering such information, especially for ecosystem impacts from climate change. Values for reducing impacts on the Prairie Pothole Region are elicited from Pennsylvania duck hunters. Factor analysis is used to develop a method for examining and accounting for potential scenario rejection. (JEL Q26)

Cross-Country Analyses Don't Estimate Health-Health Responses

Health-Health analysis has attracted considerable attention as one way to evaluate the costs of regulatory policy to people. When a regulation is adopted to reduce the “risk” experienced by a particular group, health-health analysis seeks to evaluate when the indirect effects of an increase in prices or reduction in income offsets the direct effects intended by the regulation. If these indirect effects are large enough, then the general population can experience an increase in their overall risk. The article considers health-health analysis as it relates to policy decisions from conceptual and empirical perspectives. A comparative static analysis was a simple model is used to illustrate the factors influencing the relative effects of income and policy variables on risk. The empirical analysis also suggests that results with aggregate cross-country data and simple reduced-form models for the relationship of mortality to income are sensitive to model specifications and the sample composition.

Land Treatment of Municipal Wastewater in Small Communities

A sizable portion of the budget in many small communities is devoted to the treatment of wastewater (more commonly called sewage). A community of 5,000 persons may spend more than

Some Implications of the EEC's Agricultural Price Policy

150,000 annually (adjusted to a June 1978 base) for secondary wastewater treatment using trickling filters, a lowcost alternative for this size community. If, in addition, advanced wastewater treatment (AWT) is required to remove nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, in order to meet surface water quality standards, annual costs can increase to

The Cost Impact of Joint Treatment of Domestic and Poultry Processing Wastewaters

391,000 and

Evaluating Alternatives for Communicating About Food Risk

443,000, depending on whether treatment techniques such as lime addition and nitrificationdenitrification are used (Young 1978). These processes can remove approximately 90% of the phosphorus and nitrogen, respectively, in municipal wastewater. As national policies to improve the quality of surface waters are implemented, increasing numbers of small communities in rural areas are being required to increase the level of treatment to include AWT. Research reported in this article shows that land treatment (LT) of municipal wastewaters can meet these increased surface water

The Impact of License Fees on Pennsylvania Trout Anglers? Participation

This article indicates elements of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Economic Community that may result in substantial changes in the future. Regional price indexes are developed for several grain and livestock commodities and projected to 1970 and 1975. By combining these projections with the results of an EEC survey of family farm incomes, this article shows that the projected price changes will favor the farmers with the highest incomes. Also, the operation of the Agricultural Fund causes a transfer of foreign exchange from member countries with agricultural net import balances to member countries with agricultural net export balances. Raising the internal prices of imported and exported commodities in order to establish a common price for the EEC has further increased the foreign exchange transfers.